


Return To Him

by HaroThar



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gamzee is out of the fridge, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pale Porn, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-07
Updated: 2016-08-07
Packaged: 2018-07-29 21:35:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7700560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HaroThar/pseuds/HaroThar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gamzee is cut free from the fridge and comforted by Karkat. Both of them have to work with the aftermath of LE, and are cautious but willing to try.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Return To Him

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fayghost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fayghost/gifts).



> This story works under the headcannon that the reason nobody noticed Gamzee's drastic shift in behavior was because LE, being about 1/4 Heir of Void, could make Gamzee fade into the background so people didn't think about him much. 
> 
> This story was also made as a gift for tumblr user Gamzee, who has been very busy lately and had a hankering for Karkat comforting Gamzee after the fridge and I mean really who could resist? Not this person.

The black hole explosion should have broken the chains, or at least loosened them enough that Gamzee’s admittedly frail flailing could snap them. But no, he was still locked amongst the corpses, dying once again but never fully enough that he could stay dead. No, he was not allowed to rest.

He was choking, trying to breathe air that was only his own exhales at this point, his vision blurry and grey despite his eyes being wide open to the pure blackness around him and a pressure in his pan warning him that death would tease him but not keep him once again, soon.

And then there was a snap and a thunk and he could _breathe_.

He hauled himself over the lip of the fridge, two of Sollux’s horns caught in a tear in his sleeve and moving with him, and heaved air without paying any mind to whoever aided him. He would have time for service- _and of course whoever freed him would want him to do something for them_ \- after he had enough air in his system that he didn't feel like death had thrown him in the microwave.

Someone, their voice blurry but recognized as familiar, was talking and Gamzee couldn't make anything out, a persistent ringing in his ears blanketing like water, catching words and muffling them on their way into his pan. Then someone was _touching_ him and he was much less inclined to kneel idly amongst the corpses and let _that_ happen. He jerked, but his pan reminded him that backwards=into the fridge so he lurched sideways and forward, a sharp diagonal away from his aggressor.

“Gamzee!” His name came muffled and bleary and distant, but he recognized the word that meant his own self. He honked and tried to convince his gander bulbs to focus in on the figure, and he caught the grey skin of a troll. Kurloz, perhaps? That’d be nice. But no, Kurloz didn't talk. Gamzee blinked and tried to _focus_ but his vision was striped with grey, the spots blurry and shaped like the clouds of Skaia but not half so helpful as them. Defensively, Gamzee clutched his left arm just above the break. He could feel his chest still heaving as raw lungs fought for the air they had been missing the past four or five deaths and he gave up trying to identify the troll in front of him, opting instead to curl in on himself and honk out a whimper.

He heard his name again, and other noises that sounded a lot _more_ like words but still weren't intelligible. Now it was more like listening through a thick door instead of hearing underwater. He didn't bother moving. If this person was gonna get mad at him for not understanding what they wanted him to do then he could take their fury laying down, he was hurt and still working on the air thing and _oh god they were touching him again._

He jerked back, honking loudly, and he heard his name again. He tried looking and the blur in his vision had decreased enough that he could make out Karkat. That did nothing to calm him. What did _Karkat_ want? Karkat wasn't working under English- a fact that had, at first, comforted Gamzee and later made him resentful because it meant that Karkat couldn't _understand_. Gamzee honked at him.

“Do you recognize me now?” Karkat asked and Gamzee understood it. Some syllables were still blurred out but Gamzee got the meaning. He tried to respond but when his pan went to search for words he came up empty. He honked, and hoped that was sufficient.

“I'm going to take that as a yes and move on,” Karkat said, voice all blunt and hoarse like he’d been screaming at people again, which he probably had been. Karkat liked to think he’d chilled out on the meteor, and in some ways he had, but on a whole… Well. Gamzee knew better, even with his pan all shattered splinterways by the lordly destroyer of souls.

“What’s wrong with your arm?” Karkat asked, and Gamzee frowned. Something was all twisted strange in Karkat’s tone, something soft twined around his words that wasn't supposed to be there, not for _him_. Even so, the question was straightforward enough, and Gamzee opened his mouth to answer but of course no words came. They hadn't for over a sweep. It was like sticking his hand into a bowl and there were _supposed_ to be beads in there but no matter how Gamzee searched his mind could never latch onto the words he needed for a coherent response, or any words at all. It was like his voicebox was sitting there waiting on instructions from his pan that would never find those little word beads ever again. He honked.

“Predictably helpful, thanks asshat.”

Gamzee almost found enough humor to quirk his lips up. Karkat still burned at something in Gamzee’s core, hot as the blasphemy in his mutant veins and forceful as the herds of hoofbeasts that charged across the daylit open fields of Alternia. Had Gamzee’s soul not buckled the moment Cal’s eyes met his own, had he had a little more willpower left to his name, had his pan been a little bit less threadbare when it welcomed in the red face of tragedy, maybe Gamzee would've still pitied this boy. Maybe he would've still valued him in that tight, pale little diamond in his fraying core.

Maybe he still could. His life was eking slowly back into his fluctuating respiratory system and yet, his lord was remaining ominously silent. No orders, no compulsions, not even a tiny little voice telling him to kill them all. Now that he noticed, his pan seemed cavernously empty, the sand leftover from his pan getting worn down by years of friction slowly realizing it was allowed to take up space again in the cranial cavity.

“Gamzee.” Karkat snapped near his face, not close enough to be in danger of touching him, but close enough to yank his attention out of his skull and back into reality. “I asked if I could take a look at your arm, since it seems like it's causing you pain.” Gamzee honked and gave a tiny, almost unnoticeable nod. Karkat took the broken limb in his fronds which ow, _hurt_ , but Gamzee was pretty used to things hurting by this point so he just grit his fangs and dealt with it. Karkat fussed with the sleeve and hissed quietly when he got a look at the wound. Gamzee laughed with a mirthless honk and stared at a couple broken shards of chain on the ground in front of him, the links of their source snaking through the grass in the peripherals of his vision. He didn't hiss when Karkat moved the bone underneath the garish flesh of his bruise, instead focusing _extra hard_ on the little pieces of chain. When the break slid into its rightful place, Gamzee honked, relief and a sharp decline in pain momentarily taking control of his voicebox. The remaining ache was so small in comparison to how it had felt broken he almost didn't notice that a sting was still there.

“You should count yourself lucky that didn't break through your skin,” Karkat commented. It had. But somewhere between Gamzee’s second and fourth death the flesh had healed over the jutting bone and who even knew what all went on with that. Karkat bound the break and Gamzee let himself pretend he was being cared for. He didn't guess at Karkat’s motive, dark thoughts that way lie, but it felt nice and if Karkat was going to be all strange and soft all of a sudden Gamzee wasn't going to question it. He wouldn't call it a miracle, he didn't believe in those anymore, but maybe he’d call it a gift. Like, from fate, or something.

“You're covered in fucking bruises.”

Gamzee wanted to say something about how being locked in a fridge and getting tossed around by three of the strongest people in paradox space will do that to a person. Again, he searched his pan for words and came up with some pretty impressive static instead of words. He honked.

“Do you have other injuries that need,” Karkat seemed to be fishing for words now too. Shit was straight up contagious. “Tending?”

There was a hole in his right leg where one of Eridan’s horns had gored him, and he had a collection of lines on the fatty part of his right hip where his side had had an unfortunate encounter with Feferi’s fangs. At least he was pretty sure they were Feferi’s fangs, her decapitated head had been in the right place for his side to meet up with her lower jaw but everything had been rattling around like the inside of a maraca in that fridge and yeah there wasn't a whole hell of a lot of room in there but things got pretty motherfucking jostled.

“I'm going to follow the blood on the ground like a troll who has two thoughts in his pan to rub up against each other and take a wild fucking guess that somewhere on your leg, you are bleeding.”

Gamzee honked.

Karkat started mumbling to himself, swearing and cursing and asking himself why he was even doing this. Gamzee left those little chain bits to their own devices for a bit and focused in on his alleged benefactor. Karkat rolled the leg of his pants up and frowned (further) at the hole in his calf. Carefully, or at least Gamzee certainly interpreted it as carefully, Karkat prodded around the wound and gave a low, displeased hiss.

“You wouldn't happen to have any disinfectant would you?” Karkat mumbled. Gamzee was pretty sure that was one of those questions that got thrown out in the air and wasn't seeking any answer, but he honked negatively anyway. Karkat made a weird, high pitched noise and Gamzee could not decipher its meaning, nor did he have the energy to try. He was a little more focused on the way Karkat’s hair was falling all over his eyes- he needed someone to cut that shit for him; he was terrible at doing it on his own but he didn't let anyone near his face with scissors- and the way Karkat’s thumbs were pressing two little lines all short and thick softly into the top of his calf. It felt nice. Felt idle and soothing. Gamzee latched onto those short little lines of comfort, clinging to the contact.

“I-...” Karkat started, but stopped quick as a popped balloon. Gamzee’s eyebrows arched. A wordless Karkat was a rarer sight than a five toed sloth winning a speed battle against a spotted savannah meowbeast. He waited patiently, knowing some string of words would come gushing out. It wasn't like he could supply his own, anyway.

“I, it's weird. When we were on the meteor I gave as much thought to you as I did- like, Equius or something.” Karkat’s voice was too quiet, and he wasn't looking at Gamzee as he talked. He was staring straight at Gamzee’s kneecap, his thumbs still running those hot little lines into the top of his calf. Gamzee listened close. “I didn't think much about you aside from idle conversations where I made fun of you and your weird religion or when I was hoping to god I wouldn't walk around the meteor to find you murderous and breaking shit again, but aside from that I just didn’t _think_ about you, at all, which in hindsight is really weird because when do I, Karkat Vantas, the winner of ‘shittiest person award’ in two universes, fail to overthink absolutely fucking everything and make a bigger mess out of it? And now I can't _stop_ thinking about you. Ever since the green sun went out you're all I _can_ think about. _And you know what?_ ” Ah, there was the volume Gamzee was used to. “It's fucking weird, okay? It's really, ridiculously fucking strange! Like what the fuck even, Gamzee? You were the _most_ pacifist out of all of us! You befriended the goddamned battle imps for fuck’s sake! And sometimes it was annoying, all your ‘kumbaya friendship is a miracle let's all hold hands and sing dumbass songs made for wrigglers’ bullshit, but you were nice and obnoxiously verbose over how much you just _loved_ all your motherfucking friends and it doesn't add up! I don't get it! Why would you, of all people, fly off the fucking handle and start murdering people? Why has it persisted beyond a flash of blind Highblood rage that you could work yourself down from? And why the shitsplitting taintchafing _fuck_ am I only _just_ now thinking of this shit? We spent three fucking years on that fucking meteor and I'm only just fucking now getting around to going ‘hey maybe something’s not right here.’ What the _fuck_?”

Gamzee wanted to answer, he really did. But as much as his voicebox was willing, and his desire was there, his broken pan still wouldn't come up with words for him to spew in Karkat’s direction. Defeated, Gamzee honked. Karkat’s agitated hiss-whine was expected, and one of his fronds went up into his shaggy hair and tugged at a handful near his nubby little horn.

“Of course you won't fucking answer, gods fucking forbid you do anything that’s even the slightest approximation of helpful.” Gamzee wanted to tell him that it wasn't so much of a ‘won’t’ as it was a ‘can’t’ but, well, that would require _telling_ and he couldn't motherfuckin do that now could he?

Karkat was totally right though. It _was_ strange. Gamzee hadn’t thought on it any himself, but it was _weird_ how none of his friends had even blinked an eye when he started trying to kill them all. What the motherfuck _was_ up with that?

He was just gonna go ahead and blame Lord English. What wasn't that bastard responsible for?

And since when was Gamzee allowed to think on his lord with anything but fearful reverence?

The chasm in his pan was echoing at him loud and uncomfortable and he wanted it to stop. He didn't want it filled again, he knew well the torrential downpour of destruction on his soul and missed it none, but he wanted something in his pan to counterbalance the emptiness left by a god that had, on all accounts, seemed to have forsaken Gamzee at last.

“Karkat to fucking space cadet, I'm still fucking here!”

Gamzee focused his attention back to Karkat, which made the echoing ache a little less, and found his shouty little motherfucker glowering at him.

“God, what’s even wrong with you?” Karkat asked a touch softer than he probably meant to. Gamzee figured it to be another question not seeking any answer, so he laid silent.

Karkat took a deep breath. “This is probably suicidal and Dave, Kanaya, and Rose are probably going to tear open my tainted wastechute for being a fucking dumbass, but I want to help you, Gamzee.” Gamzee honked in idle surprise. “It's been three years of freaky murderclown bullfuckery but before that I had sweeps of stupid and gentle clown bullfuckery and something’s fucking off about absolutely bulgelicking all of this shit so I want to fucking help you.”

Gamzee wasn't sure what to say, and was certain he wouldn't even under “normal” circumstances. Karkat had often been sweet on him before the game, in a gruff and loudmouthed manner that was flavored like _Karkat_ so Gamzee never minded it. But he hadn't been half so sweet on him since Lil’ Cal, like Gamzee was outside his notice. Now here he was again, earnest, truthful, wanting to help Gamzee and wanting _Gamzee_. So with wide and half-disbelieving eyes Gamzee gingerly stretched out an arm, slender fingers trembling slightly, and placed his hand on Karkat’s cheek. Gamzee didn't breathe, afraid to frighten the moment away, the softness. Karkat didn't breathe either. They stayed motionless and breathless and silent for a tight, white hot moment, and then Karkat leaned into Gamzee’s palm. And it was like the sky opened up and dark clouds finally gave way to _rain_. Gamzee’s breath went all shuddery into his lungs and he dared to allow himself a smile, his lips broken in that motion with their disuse but Karkat smiled back and it looked just as shaky and terrified as Gamzee felt but there was a back and forth of hopefulness that pierced Gamzee right down to his bones and it warmed him.

The moment couldn't last, they were both too awkward for that, and Gamzee felt a touch of small victory pride when Karkat glanced away first. His eyes went back to Gamzee’s leg and his worried-Karkat scowl came back in force. It was a different face from his anxious-Karkat scowl or his sad-Karkat scowl, and it was a fair bit kinder than his genuinely-angry-Karkat scowl or his frustrated-Karkat scowl. Gamzee remembered he had once possessed an idle liking for all of them, but presently he found the worried kind to be the only one he wanted.

“Okay, so I've decided to help you, and you are being extremely amicable to the point where it's just confusing me so I'm going to stop over-analyzing every single thing and wondering _why_ you're suddenly not feeling particularly club-happy and just take a stroke of good luck where I can get one, and look at this, I've lost my original train of thought. Let's get this many-wheeled transportation wreck of a line of thought back to the original topic: you need your wounds cleaned or you're going to get infected. Neither of us have disinfectant. Despite how incredibly, freakishly fucking flexible you are, I don't think even you can lick a wound that's on the _backside_ of your fucking calf. So we’re left with two options, either I sacrifice all imaginary dignity that I might possibly have left and also probably any concept of personal safety regarding murderhappy juggalos and I lick your wound clean for you, or we let you get an infection- which wait! Isn't an option at all! So I guess we only really have one fucking option here at this crossroads of bullfuckery.”

Gamzee recognized somewhere in the cavern of his pan that this was something people got embarrassed about. Licking your wounds in front of someone was, if Gamzee remembered right, considered public indecency, while licking someone _else’s_ wounds was motherfucking obscene. This was trust Karkat was offering him, trust and intimacy, and Gamzee was too eager to accept an offering so sumptuous to feel embarrassed about it. Karkat, the adorable motherfucker he was, was blushing enough for both of them, as it happened. All red like blasphemy and bright as sin. Gamzee stroked a thumb over that heat and smiled a little softer. Karkat was nervous and embarrassed, and a little frightened, which made it more okay that Gamzee was still a little frightened too. They could be nervous and a little frightened together, and Karkat was taking _care_.

“Fuck,” Karkat muttered, staring at Gamzee’s leg. “Fuck, now I actually have to _do_ this. Fucking hell what the fresh dickshitting fuck have I gotten myself it into?” Gamzee papped Karkat’s face once, too gently, and let his hand fall on top of his stomach. He observed Karkat, no slime to haze his nerves, and laid very still. He watched Karkat, nerves frayed to shit by everything that had happened to him but still present enough to be wary.

Karkat observed Gamzee’s leg, and his face went through a series of frowns. He lifted Gamzee’s leg once, as though to bring it to his face, but then set it back down again. He hissed quietly, sharply, at one point, and Gamzee could imagine that Karkat was trying to find a position that might be something moderately less than absolutely motherfucking mortifying in order to lick his leg. Gamzee started to think on it too, and came to two options. Karkat could lay on his back and have Gamzee’s leg on top of his face, or Gamzee could lay on his stomach and Karkat could bend down to lick it on the ground. Neither positions sounded particularly enticing to take, Gamzee could imagine.

“Fuck my entire life,” Karkat hissed. He then flopped down onto his back, slowly and awkwardly shuffled, and pulled Gamzee’s leg up onto his face. Gamzee watched in idle wonder, his cavernous pan echoing at him and his emotions stunned like they’d caught the brunt of a spitting-rafflesia’s knockout gas.

“I hate this,” Karkat informed him, just so he knew, before timidly licking the hole in Gamzee’s leg. His face was a bright, blasphemous crimson and he looked ready to quit and run away to wallow in his own humiliation, but he licked again. Gamzee’s own cheeks seemed to have gathered quite a bit of tight heat of their own- looks like he was up for feeling embarrassed about this shit- and he watched with the most rapt attention his brain had managed in sweeps. He felt something tight and white hot and possibly diamond shaped in his thoracic cavity and was in no mood to let it go, focused, instead, on the way his best friend from ages long ago was doing something so downright motherfuckin scandalous in the name of helping _him_.

Karkat’s tongue was coarse and wet against the wound, the body heat of someone so much warmer than Gamzee soothing despite his embarrassed discomfort. The wound was hardly happy to be touched but Gamzee had had worse, certainly, and Karkat was doing this to prevent anything worse from happening.

After the first few humiliating, awkward licks, Karkat seemed to gain something of decision and licked with straightforward determination. Maybe he’d opted to ignore the pale debauchery occurring and just focus with that ever burning drive of his on completing the task at hand.

Gamzee had no such luxury. He wasn't able to do anything but lay there next to his thermal prison with Karkat under his leg and _watch_ the red little motherfucker lick at his wound and clean it of that which could turn Gamzee’s flesh to ruin. Karkat’s hands on Gamzee’s leg were strong and firm and unmoving, warm with Karkat’s heat where he touched the exposed and bruised skin of his leg. His breath and tongue were strange sensations on Gamzee’s flesh and also a little painful, but Karkat’s touches were far from unwelcome.

Gamzee couldn't remember the last time someone- anyone- had done something even akin to this for him. He was embarrassed by it, certainly, his brain did not relent in reminding him that this was uncomfortably mortifying, but he was grateful for it too. Grateful enough that his bloodpusher got itself all clenched and tight like Karkat’s care was enough to squeeze it. His thoughts darted idly to when he was very young and his lusus was still around more often than he was gone, to a big purple tongue and a scraped knee, but Gamzee brushed the thought aside as inconsequential to his musings. That had happened when Gamzee was smaller than the culinary block counter-- surely somebody had done some form of care for him since then. He just couldn't remember it. Gamzee’s eyes left what was still visible of Karkat’s face, finally, and stared heavenward at nothing. He tried to think of something else but Karkat’s tongue was a persistence in his mind, keeping his thoughts rooted in that hole in his leg and the boy underneath it. He worried his lip with a lopsided fang and thrummed his fingers against his stomach, which was sore and bruised but Gamzee needed the motion more than he wanted to avoid the pain. His broken arm hurt idly at him and he tried to focus on that, but Karkat’s actions kept dragging his thoughts back and wow he was embarrassed. It hadn't started too bad but now he was sure even his ears were purple with it.

Karkat lifted Gamzee’s leg and set it down on the ground over his head, then sat up. “Alright bulgemunch, if that doesn't keep you from getting infected then I guess you're just fifty different kinds of out of fucking luck. I'm gonna wrap the wound in an old pair of sweatpants of mine, since I know I've washed this thing and it's not like I'm ever going to wear it again. I can safely turn at least one fucking garment into rags. You're welcome.”

Gamzee honked softly, gratefully. Karkat’s lips pressed together tightly and his shoulders hunched, his face still bright and brilliant.

“Whatever,” he muttered quietly and set to clawing his old pants into ribbons. Once the hole in his leg was all nice and tied off Karkat glowered at Gamzee again.

“If you're feeling particularly helpful, mind telling me if there are any other fucking injuries that are going to require me debasing myself like a fucking moron so I can get it over with and we can then proceed to never, ever talk about this in any context ever again?”

Gamzee glanced skyward again, thinking on that, and then lifted the hem of his shirt so Karkat could see the rows cut into the flesh of his side.

“Goddamn are those _teeth_ marks? What the fuck has been biting you?”

Gamzee’s face soured and he punched the fridge. He didn't care that it hurt his hand, he _hated_ that fridge and he hated what happened in it and he hated that it had been the place of his captivity and the holding hull for the corpses of people he never once had wanted dead without the orders of his lord singing carnage in his pan.

“Easy.” Karkat’s hands were on his wrist and elbow and slowly pulling his limb from where it struck. Karkat’s hold was more a cradle, his tugging more like coaxing, and unless Gamzee allowed himself to be moved the force Karkat put in would never have been enough to budge him. But he let himself be coaxed. He allowed Karkat to fold his own arm back over his stomach and for that little hot frond to brush the sweat and blood-stained hair from his forehead. “Easy, you mess, don't hurt yourself even worse.”

Gamzee whined at him and then honked frustratedly.

Karkat swallowed audibly and then pressed his palm to Gamzee’s cheek. “Shoosh.” Karkat’s voice cracked but Gamzee didn't care. He leaned into Karkat’s hand and squeezed his eyes shut tight, inhaling deeply and shakily.

“Shoosh, you unmitigated disaster. Shoosh, shoosh.” Karkat’s hand papped lightly on Gamzee’s face, rhythmic and reassuring even if Gamzee could feel the minute ways Karkat’s palm shook. He shooshed. Calmed right the fuck down to the point where he could ignore what had even bothered him in the first place. The whole universe was just Karkat’s voice and palms, drawing out the “oo” noises and papping at his cheek, brushing his hair sideways and trailing down the thin, long stretch of his nose.

“I should've done this years ago,” Karkat whispered when Gamzee was soothed. “I should've never let Vriska get her eightball-and-chain idea off the ground.”

 _Weren't your fault,_ Gamzee thought but could not say, _Forces at work far outside your capacity my little red motherfucker._

Gamzee reached his good hand out and curled it into a fold of fabric at Karkat’s knee, clinging pitifully to this lifeline of comfort that had been tossed at him in his time of ongoing need.

“I'm sorry I'm being so rough with you. For being so cold to you on the meteor, and I guess being a jackass in general. You're the one that's injured and out of your fucking pan right now and I'm making it about how uncomfortable _I_ am about all of this like a self-centered compacted cube of fucking garbage that doesn't know how to think about-”

“Honk.” Gamzee papped Karkat’s face, cutting off a sewer’s worth of self-loathing about to burst forth from that mouth. Gamzee marveled at how he could place his palm on Karkat’s cheek and it _worked_ , it stopped the flow of self-flagellation and got him all stunned and winded.

“Fuck, fucking hell fuck damnit,” Karkat swore, gently removing Gamzee’s hand from his face which, hey, wasn't fair! Gamzee frowned because he _wanted_ \- and then flinched because he should know better than to want. “I keep doing it. I'm making this about me even as I fucking speak, this is about you, it should be about you, it shouldn't be about me and my incapabilities and my failings as a troll and _fuck damnit I keep doing it_ okay, it's time out for the idiot, that's me, I'm putting myself in time out, I’m going to stop talking now.” He paused only long enough to draw breath. “Except not, because I'm the only one of the two of us that will and also everyone and their lusus knows I'm basically incapable of that. Just,” Karkat caressed Gamzee’s cheekbone, “shoosh, idiot, leave me to my pedantic assessments of my shortcomings and let me fucking take care of you.”

Gamzee wanted to tell him that maybe he wanted to take care right back, maybe he wanted to do something good with his hands for once in his life, but when he went for the words he still found only cavernous emptiness. He whined in frustration.

“Shoosh,” Karkat said, stroking Gamzee’s hairline. “Shoosh, fuck, easy does it. Shoosh you dumb fuck.”

Gamzee took a deep breath and settled, Karkat’s hands on his face a call to calm that he could not ignore had he ever wanted to.

“You okay?” Karkat asked after a handful of seconds lost in bliss. Gamzee snorted. He’d not been okay much over the course of his whole life, much less at any one point in the last sweep and a half, but given what was happening and what Karkat was most likely asking at, Gamzee figured this was the most okay he had been in a long stretch. He nodded minutely.

“Okay. Then I'm going to give future me an extra heaping of crotchblistering embarrassment to slog through in the quiet moments of his mortification and retroactive self loathing, and I'm gonna go ahead and fucking lick your fucking side clean now too, capiche?”

Gamzee grinned, his color poking through the places on his cheeks where his paint had smudged once more. Yeah, okay, this was still mortifying, but Karkat had proved himself safe ( _for now_ , his brain whispered cruelly) and Gamzee couldn't help but find a quality of flattered comedy in the situation now. Or maybe he was just losing it. But as Karkat bent down, all sitting on his rump and bowed as if for worship, Gamzee snorted gracelessly despite the awkwardness of it all. He gnawed his lip a little, a small smile playing at the shape of his face, and then reached out again, embarrassment setting his nerves aflutter, to pat Karkat’s hair.

Karkat made the most embarrassed of whines Gamzee figured he could make, and Gamzee honked giddily, almost as high pitched and tight as Karkat’s whine had been. But he did not withdraw his hand. He left it there, in Karkat’s hair, as Karkat’s rough tongue left wet marks over the scratches in Gamzee’s side. He was frequently tempted to lift his hand to cover his mouth or face with it- his broken arm being useless for that prospect, but each time he barely got the start of the movement going before he decided he liked it better with his claws in Karkat’s curls than he would with his face covered. Each time he made an attempt to move and failed, he ended up scratching lightly at Karkat’s scalp, which wasn't intentional at first but soon enough became that way. Karkat either ignored him or didn't mind it, maybe he even liked it and was too busy being embarrassed enough to creep heretic red down towards his shoulders, but he let Gamzee continue. The two were like that for a time, Gamzee petting and Karkat cleaning.

Gamzee didn't believe in miracles anymore, but if he did, this might have been one.

A strange, stainglass throw-together of uncomfortable and terrifying and warm and soft, but maybe a miracle. He tugged gently at a tangle trapping one of his fingers, and then proceeded to claw through that of Karkat’s hair which he could reach, little knots and tangles falling apart under soft pressure from his finger pads and claws. He was careful with those, didn't want to give a motherfucker a haircut.

Karkat lifted up far too soon and Gamzee’s hand was jostled out of his hair, but he supplemented by moving his hand to Karkat’s cheek. Karkat grabbed Gamzee’s wrist and he feared that he’d move it away again, but something on his face softened and instead he pushed it a little closer, leaning into Gamzee’s touch.

Karkat sighed. Gamzee sure wasn't how he felt about that. Gamzee wasn't sure how he felt about any of this situation, though the general feeling seemed to be more positive than not.

“Are you willing to talk to me now?” Karkat asked. Gamzee frowned and honked his dissatisfaction. He was more than willing, he _wanted_ to, but his pan and his voicebox wouldn't organize themselves and connect like he needed to and he was probably a mite more frustrated with that than Karkat was.

“Okay,” Karkat said dejectedly. “Fine, that's fine, we can work with not talking, we fucking have been already, why would we need communication when I can just flail around blindly and you can continue to be pitiful and distinctly lacking in murderous impulses. Fucking fantastic. Why not.”

Gamzee papped Karkat’s face again and honked, a touch more humor and a lot less bitterness in his tone that time.

“Can you sit up?” Karkat asked, still leaving his hand on top of Gamzee’s and Gamzee had to remind himself not to marvel at that and miss the rest of what was going on. He pulled his hand away with reluctance and slowly propped himself up. Karkat’s hands went to his shoulders and helped him, adding strength and guidance to his actions for which he was grateful. He did not haul his own broken and bleeding sack of fleshmeat from the unforgiving ground alone. He had warm hands to help him this time.

Once sitting upright, vertigo hit him, and his swaying made it apparent to both of them that he would not be upright long. So Karkat pulled at Gamzee’s farthest shoulder and brought him in close against his chest, which was a great deal firmer and less likely to topple over than Gamzee’s own. Gamzee placed his head on Karkat’s shoulder, letting out a breath. His bloodpusher felt right and almost painful from the closeness, from the act of being held. His good hand quit trying to hold himself up and instead buried itself in the folds of Karkat’s sweater, gripping onto the cloth like a just-hatched wriggler clings to its lusus. Gamzee honked, not knowing exactly what feeling he was trying to convey but wanting to convey it anyway.

“Shoosh,” Karkat whispered, barely audible. “Shoosh, you gangly wreck.”

Karkat’s thick arm was sturdy, holding up Gamzee’s back, and the other rubbed gently at his shoulder for a few moments, then went up to pap his face. Gamzee tried to make an approving noise but all that came out was a tiredly delighted honk. Karkat’s thumb brushed all firm and warm over the protruding arch of Gamzee’s cheekbone. His palm rested reassuringly on his cheek and his fingers just barely pushed into the thick of his hairline, one of Gamzee’s curls brushing against the back of Karkat’s palm like decoration.

Karkat brushed Gamzee’s hair from his face, there as his head rested close to Karkat’s neck. Gamzee had sharp teeth and Karkat had soft flesh, Gamzee knew the weight and trust of this. But still, Karkat held him there and smoothed warm fingers over unruly curls, trying to tame their wildness into some approximation of laying flat.

“You're probably thirsty,” Karkat said, frown evident on his voice despite the way his fingers still so delicately pet Gamzee’s hair. Gamzee honked noncommittally. The honk made him aware that yes, as a matter of fact, he was thirsty, he was really thirsty, and he was just good at tuning bodily needs into background white noise.

“Yeah, that's what I thought. Here, Kanaya made sure we all had like fifty fucking billion water bottles each before we got into this shitfest,” Karkat said as he popped one of said water bottles out of his sylladex, “Drink up.”

Gamzee wasn't about to let go of his death grip on Karkat’s sweater and luckily Karkat didn't expect him to. Karkat held the bottle up to Gamzee’s lips and while Gamzee did still get water trickling down the sides of his chin, he managed to swallow most of it. The arm supporting Gamzee’s back shifted so Karkat’s hand could also cradle Gamzee’s head, keeping him upright and where Karkat needed him, and Gamzee was so grateful.

“Still thirsty?” Karkat asked. Gamzee honked and nodded a little. Karkat ejected another bottle from his sylladex and Gamzee only just barely spilled any of it on himself. Karkat was halfway through asking if Gamzee wanted a third when Gamzee flopped himself back onto Karkat’s shoulder and tugged on his sweater, not to get his attention for anything but just because Gamzee wanted to be _close_ and he ached with his craving for Karkat’s affection. Karkat’s arm slid down from his hair, back to holding him around the back, and his free hand went back to Gamzee’s face. Karkat hugged him, and Gamzee’s bruised ribs screamed at him in protest but the part of him that needed to be loved didn't give one single airborne fuck. The part of him that needed someone, needed _Karkat_ , wanted Karkat to crush him; it wanted to sink into Karkat’s warmth and never come back out, wanted to be so close he couldn't tell where he started and Karkat ended.

“Don't cry,” Karkat said softly, “shoosh, shoosh, don't cry, it's- fuck it's really not okay is it, we left you locked in a goddamned fridge for fuck’s sake there is nothing even remotely okay about this situation.”

Gamzee didn't want to think on that. He felt warm and loved and somewhat safe, he didn't want to think on a time when he had _not_. He didn't want to think on that cramped hell, but his pan wasn't interested in cooperating. Memories and thoughts crept into Gamzee’s pan like water in a bathtub, thoughts of suffocation and darkness and brutal movement and the sound of chains and the stench of rotting corpses and the giggling of his lord’s vessel in his pan and gradually the thoughts cascaded on him less like a tub filling and more like a levy broken, fast and merciless as nature and threatening to drown him and his chest ached with a sob and-

“Shoosh, shoosh, I'm sorry, shoosh,” Karkat was papping his face and cradling him and Gamzee cried loudly. He'd been ignoring it, that black hell, subconsciously or not, and now it was all back and _terrible_. “I'm sorry,” Karkat whispered, face close, “we shouldn't have left you in there, that was awful of us, I can't believe we didn't fucking _notice_ or think to ponder that maybe that was fucking torture to you, I'm so sorry Gamzee. I’m- fuck, I'm so sorry, there's nothing I can do to make this right because I'm a shitheel that doesn't know how to act when things aren't already broken, fuck, I'm so- god my apologies are as useless as trolling someone backwards through time, aren't they? I don't think they could possibly make you feel any fucking better.”

Gamzee shook his head. Karkat couldn't fix anything but his apologies _were_ making things better. It was nice to hear that someone cared, that even though no one stopped it from happening at least someone was upset for him _now_. He continued to cry with broken, heaving sobs into Karkat's neck and shoulder as Karkat apologized over and over, his apologies punctuated with self-flagellation and questions of why nobody _noticed_. Gamzee clung to those apologies like he has clinging to Karkat’s sweater.

“I'm sorry,” Karkat repeated before pressing a kiss to Gamzee’s forehead. He squeezed Gamzee close with the arm on his back and caressed his jaw, fingers brushing against the underside of his ear, and pressed his nose against Gamzee’s smudged face paint. “I'm so sorry,” he whispered once more.

“Honk.” Gamzee’s fingers were hurting from their death grip on Karkat’s sweater, but he didn't care. He didn't care about his bruises or his fatigue or the way Karkat was holding him too tightly, he was sad and he was _lonely_ and Karkat was finally, finally, _finally_ there and Gamzee could feel his shattered pusher hurting like needles were trying to sew it back together. He let himself cry with a hoarse throat and little hiccuping honks and sobs, let the years of lonely, lordly bullshit out and it felt a lot like release, relief, like air on dying embers.

“Shoosh,” Karkat soothed, hand warm, as Gamzee continued to sob. “The past is done and over with, and I can't fucking go back in time and change anything, but I can promise that I'm never going to leave you alone again, Gamzee, I fucking swear it on my useless expanding and collapsing cardiovascular system and all the shitty off-colored mutant bullshit pumping through it. I promise okay? I'm, I'm going to take care of you.”

Gamzee honked, half a sob, and Karkat kissed his forehead again, leaving his lips resting on his hairline. “Shooooosh, shoosh,” he soothed, breathing against Gamzee’s paint and skin and the roots of his hair. “I've got you, you're not alone anymore, shoosh Gamzee, shoosh you stupid clown, it’ll- it'll be alright.”

Gamzee’s crying gradually quieted. He still clung to Karkat’s sweater with a vise-like fist and his desire to move his head from Karkat’s shoulder was in the negative, but he cried himself out. It left him feeling achy and exhausted but _better_. He felt so much better than he had since…

He felt better.

Karkat had started rocking, somewhere in there, just a tiny little bit but he was doing it, and now that Gamzee’s body wasn't shaking with sobs he could feel it. Karkat's hand was still on his face and he was still pressing susurruses into Gamzee’s hairline, and Gamzee was so _tired_ now that he had cried himself out. Without intending to, and without much by way of means to stop himself, Gamzee started to purr. Karkat startled when the sound kicked up, shocked out of his shooshing, and then made a noise that Gamzee believed was a chuckle.

“Fuck, of course this embarrassing many-wheeled transportation wreck was going to turn into an even more embarrassing wreck. Are you seriously purring?”

Gamzee grinned, his lower lip dry and threatening to split, and nodded into Karkat’s shoulder.

“You know most trolls think of purring as wriggler shit, or, I don't fucking know, something intimate meant only to do behind closed doors in a secure environment with somebody proven to them to be trustworthy and typically already in their quadrants, but why not, I licked your fucking wounds for fuck’s sake, why not add purring to this abomination of a pale- this is pale right? We are planting ourselves firmly in the moirallegiance quadrant right? Well I mean if you want this to be a one-time pale fling I guess that’d be fair, fuck knows you really need it, but this whole thing has sort of spiraled all the way out of control, we have lost all approximation of control, emotions are everywhere, and I _am_ going to make good on my promise and I'm going to watch after you but if you don't want it in a pale way or if I've been putting myself where I'm not wanted-”

Gamzee had quite enough of Karkat’s predicted yet unwelcome dive into doubt and guilt that was, quite frankly, uncalled for. So with a touch of whimsy in his actions Gamzee decapchalogued a Faygo and it landed directly on top of Karkat's head, right between the horns. He squawked and jostled and it made Gamzee honk out a laugh, his purr still ongoing even through all of Karkat’s second guessing.

“Gamzee what the fuck? What the actual fuck? I'm trying to have a serious conversation with you here and you're dumping your clowny bullshit on my head. Is this your way of telling me to ‘kick back and slam a wicked elixir’ or some shit because I will tell you right now that I am not putting that swill in my body despite whatever delusions about my chill you may currently have.”

Gamzee honked, still purring, and tilted his head up to kiss Karkat on the jaw.

“Okay that's great and all but if you could give me a legitimate fucking answer about the moirallegiance question that’d be real fucking dandy.”

Gamzee’s purr quieted at that, suddenly unsure of himself. Certainly, _he_ wanted Karkat in his quadrant, he had for sweeps and sweeps, even before The Game. And it sounded like Karkat was 100% on board for that too, and after everything that had just happened it would be silly to think Karkat _wouldn't_ , and yet, the insecurity persisted.

But Karkat had gone out on a limb for Gamzee. He should at least be able to push through his own anxiety when there was a complete assurance for success.

Gamzee sat up, head spinning a little bit but not too much, he could sit on his own. Karkat was watching him carefully, and Gamzee swallowed and made himself look Karkat in the eye. Karkat deserved that much. Gamzee did, too, he deserved to be able to look at someone’s face without turning away. He reached out his hand and grabbed Karkat’s, then brought it up to his cheek. He smoothed his thumb over Karkat’s warm knuckles, making his friend’s fingers lay flat on his own cheek, and then reached out his hand and papped Karkat. Gamzee’s lips were pressed tight against each other and his thorax felt tight with a nervousness that didn't belong there, and he tried to make himself into the very appearance of earnestness. He wanted Karkat, wanted him more than he would ever have the words to say, should he ever have words to say ever again, and he wanted Karkat to know that if Karkat would have him, then he would be gladly had.

Karkat brought his hand to Gamzee’s other cheek as well, grey cheeks flushed red again, a sight to look at. “Me too,” he said, voice sounding tight.

Gamzee’s purr rekindled, and he stroked his thumb along Karkat’s cheekbone. His skin was so hot under Gamzee’s palm, splendid, a fount of wonder for Gamzee to draw from. Karkat pulled Gamzee gently by the chin, his pinky finger pressing on Gamzee’s jaw right on top of a bruise that had been hit against the inside of the fridge, and kissed Gamzee soft as pity. Gamzee rolled his fingers up off Karkat’s cheek and patted them back down, delicate as Karkat’s own touch, and kissed back, pale and light and sweet as stardust.

Gamzee broke the kiss to laugh, delighted and maybe just a little bit teasing, at the fact that Karkat was now purring too. What was that half-hearted salty bullshit this brother had been spewing earlier about purring?

“Oh shut the fuck up you're doing it twice as much as I am!” Karkat protested, red and scowling but not in any way Gamzee thought meant ill. He laughed again.

“Fight me, groinbarb.”

In response, Gamzee kissed the cheek his hand wasn't on. Karkat harrumphed but kissed Gamzee’s temple in return, and Gamzee let his head fall onto Karkat’s shoulder. He felt tired. He felt maybe, possibly, hopefully, timidly safe. He felt warm and his brother’s- his _moirail’s_ \- shoulder was soft and inviting. The air was filled with the sound of both their purring, Gamzee’s lord was silent as the dead, he had a hand on Karkat’s cheek and Karkat’s hands on his back, hugging close once again, and it was enough to get Gamzee believing in miracles again.

**Author's Note:**

> If you spot any errors, or liked the piece, feel free to leave a comment!!!


End file.
